Unless you’re still a Netflix subscriber, eager for the red envelope. Or it’s your birthday, and you can take a break from the hordes of Facebook congrats to see if someone loved you enough to put a stamp on an envelope.

But even in a mix of rainy, snowy, windy mess, the trek to the curb offers just a moment of ‘tis the season anticipation: What surprise will be there today?

Of course, what goes around comes around. And if you aren’t sending any to faraway loved ones and old pals, you’re likely just getting blobs of last-minute charity pitches, credit card offers and catalogs.

(We’re considering a family contest to see what kind of structure to build — tool shed? deer blind? garage? — with the glossy-paged stacks of catalogs, which tend to reproduce like carpenter ants.)

So here comes the annual dilemma: Just how committed are we/you/me to the waning ritual of sending cards of the season?

Time was, we’d get so many, they hung on ribbons all over the house. Blame the expense, our increasing societal resistance to taking pen in hand, and, as with everything else, the Internet. Numbers are down.

Yet, every year, I experience the Seven Stages of Card-Sending Inertia.

Stage Six: Escape. Remember several boxes on a shelf at home somewhere, each with un-sent leftovers from past years.

Stage Seven: Consider buying a chai for my trouble.

I prefer the written note, if you’re going to all that time and expense to send cards at all. Which makes it onto the chore list. Chore sounds negative. I hate sending Christmas cards. See the logic?

Some approach this like well-oiled machines: smart enough to forgo cursive for stickers and pre-prints. How cold, I once thought.

But at least they were thinking of me at all. And instead of dashing off a quick E-card, sent a real paper thing that is not asking me for money. Got it off their guilty to-do lists and moved on to better things. (Baking!)

In truth, I really enjoy hearing from those faraway who, like me, don’t otherwise find much time for life updates. So, if you want ’em, you gotta send ’em.

One regret: We didn’t do a family photo this year. Not because we weren’t together or didn’t have fun — the year overflowed, we are grateful to report.

But, in fact, no one got the task done, exploring the 10,000 or so photos in the laptop for one that says, Us! I always like seeing such photos from afar, though never, never know what to do with them come January.

So, note to all those who’ve been on my past lists of annual greetings: I’m thinking of you.

It’s good to take a moment and celebrate, since there are so many other moments we’d rather not. The kind everyone endures, because they must, and which don’t often make it into the annual holiday letter. You know, life.